[Histonet] AO860 repair advice

[Bass, Caroline]

Hi Guys,

I'm taking apart my AO860 and have a couple issues. First is trying to pull apart the central shaft that the microtome lowers and raises on. I can get the primary parts away from each other, and pull off the gears associated with the handle, but the gear on the central shaft is a problem. Normally I would just ignore it but there is some gunk in there that is definitely catching. I'll try soaking in mineral spirits, but if that doesn't work I'd like to take the shaft off. The three units are conspiring against me. It looks like one pin, running perpendicularly through the shaft is holding it all together, but I don't know for sure. There is a top plate that prevents the bottom plate from coming off and then the gear prevents the bottom plate from coming off. I can move everything about 1 cm so hopefully the solvent can get in there. I'm just perplexed at this particular part. Should I be able to take it apart? Am I missing something?

Here are some pictures…

the middle one shows the top plate, bottom plate and pin in the shaft. The bottom picture shows the clearance I have in moving them all together.

http://imgur.com/a/DkF3j

The second thing is one screw is stripped and won't come off. This is a flathead small screw. It's not totally stripped, but it's stopped up enough that there's no way brute force can do it. Any advice? I've thought of supergluing the screw to the screwdriver, but I don't want to wreck my nice microtome!

Thanks in advance,

Caroline Bass
University at Buffalo